


i'd give all i have, honey

by aceofdiamonds



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 13:10:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8490997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: “She looks like me,” Nick says, voice low. “She looks like Zara. I know they have their moments but the squad’s pretty smart.”
a different way amanda's pregnancy began and ended





	

**Author's Note:**

> i've been watching a lot of this in the last week or so and i'm pretty much in love with amanda rollins and i want her to be happy and i wanted to involve nick somehow because i wish they'd got more than they did. a small scene from the hospital. title is from never grow up by t swift.

 

 

When Amanda wakes up the world is hazy. She groans, keeps her eyes closed, and wills the pain away. When that doesn’t work she opens her eyes to the ceiling.

A noise coaxes her to turn her head to the left, a small, soft noise that settles in her chest as something she knows she’s going to hear many times more and that she’s going to love hearing it every time. In this moment she remembers when she first found out she was pregnant, when Yates looked across the table at her, wrought with grief, and made his clever statements that shifted Amanda’s world. She remembers feeling panic and hopelessness and a little bit of anger, but, as Carisi said, as all the movies, all the books, say, that soft little noise takes root inside of her and she opens her eyes.

Her daughter’s tiny, swaddled in a blanket so she can only see her face. Amanda would crane her neck to get a better look but she’s exhausted and the nurse has just come in saying something about placentas and close to death and all Amanda wants is to hold her daughter and also figure out what the hell —

“You’re back,” she manages, clearing her throat past the scratchiness.

“You’re awake,” Nick replies, leaning forward. The baby comes with him and _oh_ , she can see her face now. “I hope you don’t mind…” he trails off, almost squirms, but Nick Amaro doesn’t wriggle out of situations.

“That you’re holding my daughter before me?” Amanda asks. She waves a hand — it flops on to the bed. God, she’s exhausted. “Lemme see her.”

“She’s beautiful, Amanda,” he says, hands her over, and then he hovers. “You did good.”

“Is that a dig? Because I didn’t tell you until last week? I did okay on my own?”

Nick scrubs a hand through his hair. That makes Amanda take a good look at him -- three years being colleagues and half that being something more it’s still jarring to see him looking disheveled, like someone came along and shook him up, tossed him back into reality without giving him time to pull himself together. “Jesus, Amanda, no, of course I didn’t mean it like that. Look, I get it, okay? I’m pissed but I get why you didn’t tell me.”

Amanda runs a finger along the baby’s cheek, tilts her head towards her. Her daughter blinks up at her, a calm that isn’t going to last. “You resigned,” she says, eyes still caught on the big brown ones staring up at her. “You disappeared and I didn’t know if you’d be interested and I didn’t know if I wanted you to be.”

“Can I ask why you phoned me last week?” Nick’s still hovering. She throws him a bone and looks up at him, jerks her head so he drags the chair over with his foot and sits down beside her head. He throws another glance asking for permission before he reaches out and allows his finger to be trapped, curled in the tiny fingers of her daughter, their daughter.

“Things were a mess,” Amanda sighs. “My sister showed up, I was brought in here, and I was terrified everything was going to collapse and my child was going to be left parentless. Call me paranoid, you know all about that.”

“Funny,” Nick says. “But thank you, Amanda, for calling. I’ll stand by whatever you want but I’m going to stick around and I’ll be here.”

“And the squad? I pretty much told them she wasn’t yours,” because that had been the first thing to come out and then it had been easier when she thought she wasn't going to see Nick again.

The baby snuffles, makes a noise that can only be described as a squeak and their attention is diverted. Amanda allows herself to look at Nick watching the baby, the softness that curves his face, and she remembers how she stumbled into love before she knew not to do that. Nick who always had something to prove and a family life messy enough to match her own. Yeah, she should've seen it coming.

“She looks like me,” Nick says, voice low. “She looks like Zara. I know they have their moments but the squad’s pretty smart.”

Amanda groans but there’s something that isn’t terror or anger pushing into her chest and so she smiles and contents herself with the fact that even though her personal and professional life have collided, the looks on their faces are going to be worth it, and she’s got an adorable daughter out of it.

“I meant what I said on the phone, Nick,” she has to say. “I’ve dealt with this the last nine months, it’s my say who’s involved and how.”

Nick replies to this by smoothing over her hair, pressing a kiss to her temple. Amanda leans into it involuntarily but the warmth and the support is comforting. “Like I said, Amanda, I’m sticking around.”

“No one told me a reunion was happening,” Fin says, entering the room.

Amanda feels Nick move back, take his finger back from the tiny thief holding it hostage. “Fin. Long time, man.”

“You’re telling me, Amaro,” Fin replies, a laugh of disbelief that Amanda echoes from where she’s lying down. She watches as Fin takes a look at the baby, has a look at Nick, and then checks with Amanda. He’s a good detective, Fin Tutuola. “Rollins, are you telling me you lied to me?” but he’s not digging, he’s handing over flowers that Amanda balances on the table, she never knows what to do with flowers, and then he’s bopping the baby on the nose. “Look at you, sitting in here, being a family.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Fin,” Amanda says. “Nick’s visiting.”

“I’m here for the --” Nick catches Amanda’s eye; she shrugs, it’s his prerogative. “--for the foreseeable future.”

“Alright,” Fin shrugs, easy. “Liv’ll be happy to see you.”

“Amanda says she’s Lieutenant now?” And he sounds proud when he says it.

“Carisi’s still here,” Amanda reminds him. “He said he’d be coming in later.”

Amanda remembers those secret weekends and looks that never counted for anything over desks. She’s not going to pretend her and Nick had some great romance but it had been something, it had made the few hours spent outside the precinct, outside the horrors of the job, something to look forward to, and it had been a secret that they’d kept from everyone both because it was nice having something of their own and because they didn’t know what could happen with their jobs over it. Neither of them ever seemed sure it was worth everything that would come with it should they tell anyone, but here they are in a hospital room with a baby that looks a little like each of them, and Amanda doesn’t know how she feels about everyone knowing everything about her but it’s happening whether she likes it or not because her sister got her blood pressure up and she picked up the phone and called the person she hadn’t seen for seven months, and for what it's worth, she's glad to see him.

Amanda can hear Nick and Fin catching up, saying things she heard on the phone last week and filling in on the goings-on at SVU. She closes her eyes, holds her baby close, and when Nick runs his hand over her hair, rests it on her shoulder, she doesn’t mind it so much.

 

 


End file.
